Kitty Dunn

Missing the old root beer stands

by Kitty Dunn,posted Jul 18 2012 11:43AM

Sing it with me, kids!

"Let's all go to A&W! Food's more fun at A&W!"

I really miss the old-fashioned A& W root beer stand.

I know I can still get A& W root beer in a bottle or can, or at one of their sit down restaurants, but it's just not the same. There are three of the old-fashioned drive-ins inbedded in my memory. Stevens Point had two of them..one on the south side and the other downtown.

The downtown was my favorite, and my sister and some of my friends actually worked there back in the day. You could get a small root beer for a dime (baby beers were 5 cents..or free for the little ones). Those stands were the first places I ever got soft serve ice cream!

I liked sitting at the counter best, but it was also pretty cool to have the carhop hook that tray on the window and try to eat in the car without making a big mess.

It was a special treat when we'd get a gallon of root beer to take home to enjoy there.

I also spent a lot of time at the A & W in Prentice, WI. Both my parents came from that tiny town in northern Wisconsin, and going to the root beer stand was one of the only cool things we could do there. (Aside from watching for bears at the dump).

I was quite fond of the french fries. It was the first place I ever tried fries that were made out of processed potatoes and pushed through something like a play-doh fun factory before they were deep fried. They were amazing.

I found the jingle on youtube...it doesn't sound exactly the way I remember it, but it's close enough to make me crave a big root beer float. I wish they still only cost 35 cents!

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